nodar flowlines

In April of 2008 I spent a month at the Binauralmedia residency in Nodar, Portugal. My interest was to carry out a sonic and visual survey of the landscape around the local village through a series of site-specific recording sessions. In particular I compared and contrasted the geographic lines caused by the natural water flows towards the river at the bottom of the valley versus the man-made aqueduct that transverses the vertical lines horizontally and brings water into the village. Both of these phenomenon actually rely on natural forces yet one was created for a specific purpose for the local inhabitants.

Using this theme of natural flow lines, I constructed two distinct audio-visual “narratives” based on the two types of landscapes shaped by water and humans. The surveys included recording methods that stem from the types of flows, drawing inspiration from the behavior patterns of how these flows shape the landscape.

The base sound material relied on the use of ambient sounds, found objects, (natural and man-made materials), and human intervention (installation and improvisation). The visual material focused on documenting the various aspects of this location based activity. The sound and video documents were edited afterwards into a two part video work that reflects and shows the “flowlines” locations and process.

below are a number of images and sounds from the original recording sessions which include other sites I discovered along the way.

A perpetual realtime streaming process for Internet 2 is sought from individuals globally, which could include their individualized networked and personal listening sources derived from physical nature. As a participant, I point to key aspects from my own research to provide sensor-monitorings from wind-stirred trees, my re-constructed windribbon.* Additional contributors could supply sensor-derived from an Australian rocks strewn creek and its adjacent tree sounds. As Skype collaborators, they could merge related works from individual nodes by adding their soundings and digitally join ongoing streams as a perpetual international listening. Such a cyclic process would have globals collected natural resources. A given months sounds could be resumed at the same time in a subsequent year. It is my present interest to re-awaken the natural energy in a world wired for what. I want to reaffirm the need to reconnect with natural phenomena in realtime. I seek engagement with you for an ongoing, participatory Internet 2 event in which an ear approach is the basis for a new hearing of nature and working towards the goal of recontextualizing sound in art.